Cinematographic film magazine

ABSTRACT

A plurality of grooves, in which the upright portion of a magazine stopper fits, are provided in the outer wall of a cinematographic film magazine between the take-up and supply shafts thereof, and the magazine, when placed on the magazine stopper, is balanced at one of the grooves, and detecting the amount of unexposed film in the magazine occurs by reading the graduation corresponding to the groove.

United States Patent Kurechi 154] CINEMATOGRAPHIC FILM MAGAZINE [72]Inventor: Taichi Kurechi, Ashigara-Kamigun,

Kanagawa, Japan [73] Assigneez Fuji Photo Film Co.,

Kanagawa, Japan [22] Filed: I Sept. 3, 1971 [21] Appl.No.: 177,722

Ltd.,

[30] Foreign Application Priority Data Sept. 3, 1970 Japan ..45/87802[52] U.S. Cl. ..352/78 C, 352/172 [5 1] Int. Cl. ..G03b 23/02, G03b 1/60[58] Field of Search ..352/72, 78 C, 78 R, 172

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,630,170 12/1971 Christo..352/l72 X 5] Oct. 24, 1972 9/1970 Buon ..352/78 R 2,326,654 8/1943Jagust ..352/78 R X 7/1949 Jacobson ..352/78 R X Primary Examiner-SamuelS. Matthews Assistant Examiner-Monroe B. Hayes Attorney-Richard G.Sughrue et al.

[57] ABSTRACT A plurality of grooves, in which the upright portion of amagazine stopper fits, are provided in the outer wall of acinematographic film magazine between the takeup and supply shaftsthereof, and the magazine, when placed on the magazine stopper, isbalanced at one of the grooves, and detecting the amount of unexposedfilm in the magazine occurs by reading the graduation corresponding tothe groove.

2 Claims, 6 Drawing Figures Patented Oct. 24, 1972 nc 2 m. 3

FIG '4 1 CINEMATOGRAPHIC FILM MAGAZINE BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1Field of the Invention The present invention relates generally to a filmmagazine, and especially to a cinematographic film magazine, i.e., afilm magazine for a motion picture camera. More particularly, thepresent invention relates to a film magazine for 8 mm cinematographicsystem, commonly called Single Eight, which is hereafter referred to as8-8 film magazine.

2. Description of the Prior Art Such a film magazine is commonly made toenable it to be exchanged with another film magazine in a camera (e.g.,color to back and white, black and white to color, high sensitive to lowsensitive, and so on), even if in the course of photographing, i.e.,with remaining unexposed film carried therein. The film magazine,however, has the inconvenience in that the counter in the camera is notable to indicate the correct amount of unexposed film when the exchangemagazine is again mounted into the camera after the exchange.Accordingly, the user has to memorize the amount of unexposed film inthe exchanged magazine in order to make the counter indicate the amountcorrectly.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention intends to overcome theabove noted inconvenience and accordingly, it is a prime object of thepresent invention to provide a film magazine having means for detectingthe amount of unexposed film therein. A further object of the presentinvention is BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The principle, theobjects and the advantages of the present invention will be betterunderstood from the following description taken in connection with theaccompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. I is a front view of an S8 film magazine.

FIG. 2 is a side view of the 8-8 film magazine of FIG. 1 from side A.

FIG. 3 is a side view of the 8-8 film magazine, from side B.

FIG. 4 is a rear view of the 8-8 film magazine.

Hg. 5 is an enlarged side view of the portion of the 8-8 film magazinewherein the grooves are provided.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view of the magazine stopper.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring to the drawingsillustrating an embodiment of the present invention, the principle ofthe invention is explained in that, the amount of film shifted from thetake-up portion 6 to the supply portion 7 in the 8-8 film magazineduring a photographing operation can be detected by the changes inweight of both portions, and accordingly, the amount is checked withgrooves 1, 2, 3', 4, 5' and the graduations 1, 2, 3, ,4, 5, i.e., thefilm magazine is balanced at one of the grooves according to the weightdifference between both portions 6 and 7. Besides, in the presentembodiment, the magazine stopper 9 shown in FIG. 6 is used as thesupporting member to achieve the above noted balancing.

S-8 film is 15.2 meters in fulllength, and five check points areprepared thereon with 2.5 meters spacing, i.e., at the positions of 2.5m, 5.0 m, 7.5 m, 10.0 m and 12.5 m (cf. the last space is 2.7 meters).Thus, the positions of the grooves as the results are shown by thefollowing table:

Groove Position Length of Length of (Length 8 Taken-up Film unexposedFilm in (FIG. 4) l 47 mm 2.5 m 12.7 m (5/6) 2' 49.5 5.0 10.2m (2/3) 3'52.0 7.5 7.7m (U2) 4' 54.5 l0.0 5.2 in (H3) 5' 57.0 [2.5 2.7m(ll6) wherethe fraction in the brackets shows the ratio of unexposed film length tothe whole film length.

The width and depth of the groove, as shown in FIG. 5 are determined tobe 1 mm and 0.5 mm, respectively, with relation to the thicknesses ofthe magazine and the magazine stopper 9 (cf. the magazine stopper is 0.6thick). The graduations 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 shown in FIGS. 2 and 3 may bedesigned to indicate the amount of unexposed film.

In order to detect the amount of unexposed film, in the presentembodiment of the invention, the film magazine including unexposed filmis placed on the upright portion 91 of the magazine stopper 9, and oneof the grooves 1', 2', 3, 4, 5' is searched out and selected forbalancing the magazine. Thus, the graduation corresponding to the groovewill make the amount of unexposed film apparent. If the balance is notacquired at any one of the grooves, but at the intermediate portionbetween two of the grooves, the amount of unexposed film will be betweenthe graduations corresponding to the two grooves.

From the above description, it will be apparent that the presentinvention provides the advantage of simply detecting the amount ofunexposed film in a film magazine without using any special apparatus.

What is claimed is:

1. In a cinematographic film magazine incorporating a take-up and asupply reel with a film threaded at respective ends thereto and reelabletherebetween, the improvement comprising:

a plurality of spaced parallel grooves formed within said film magazinewall intermediate of said reels and at right angles to a line passingthrough the reel axes; each groove being identified by an accompanyingindicia each of said plurality of grooves being so spaced relative tothe supply and take-up reels that the weight of the magazine and film isequally divided on each side of a given groove when the distribution ofthe film between the supply and take-up reels is as indicated by theindicia adjacent said groove.

2. The film magazine as claimed in claim 1, further including a rightangle member whose edge has dimensions on the order of those of saidgrooves.

1. In a cinematographic film magazine incorporating a take-up and asupply reel with a film threaded at respective ends thereto and reelabletherebetween, the improvement comprising: a plurality of spaced parallelgrooves formed within said film magazine wall intermediate of said reelsand at right angles to a line passing through the reel axes; each groovebeing identified by an accompanying indicia each of said plurality ofgrooves being so spaced relative to the supply and take-up reels thatthe weight of the magazine and film is equally divided on each side of agiven groove when the distribution of the film between the supply andtake-up reels is as indicated by the indicia adjacent said groove. 2.The film magazine as claimed in claim 1, further including a right anglemember whose edge has dimensions on the order of those of said grooves.